Bristol

Lavender blooms solemnly now, where once it did in celebration.
The gold and the sapphire gleam less and less each day,
Since she lost her love on the edge of the sea. 
They promised that even death could not thwart such a bond,
So how could a mere twenty-five years?

Both knees to the ground where once he laid one,
The fair-haired lad now grays.
A king in a castle empty
Of all those whom he raised.

What joy is left in such a life comprised of spine and stone?
The question rang for eight long years,
Tolling like a mourning bell.
Cast iron tolled the bell again,
Cast far across the sea.
She was called to a home she left behind among great trees and memory.

All was isolation 
On the metropolitan island 
In the midst of drying desert
Where they raised their family. 

But the children,
Whose eyes: rose-rimmed in dark rooms; clear smiling in the light. 
They, themselves, are not alone or unloved; 
The love from their parents solidifies like concrete.

Yet childhood is broken. 
The garden lost its flowers; the hobby-horse, its rock.
In one becoming two, merriment decays,
Until bitter, leather rind
Replaces the sweetness of the fruit.

Six shards of what was wholesome,
Some in East and some in West,
Pine for days gone by.
The father for his love,
The mother for her home,
The children– their family.

The lavender blooms still, tall and beautiful as ever.
Beautiful and meaningless-
Beautiful in memory-
Beautiful as the love they once beheld,
Which shall never bloom again.